“The will to power as self-valuing”: to BARL that phrase cannot do without the term “the will to power”. Why not? Because “self-valuing” is a very abstract word. It’s the reflexive form [“self-”] of a gerund–and, not unimportant though only secondarily, a nominalized adjective–[“valuing”] made from a Latinism (“valu-”)–whereas “will” and “power”, not to mention “to”, are much rather “Anglish” words. Even “power”, however, is ]already[ easily dubious, being French in origin. (I could elaborate, but would rather move on.)
Self-valuing, as I understand it, is the making worthy of ‘making worthy’… It is the insistence, by that which it itself is, that this way of ‘making things worthy’ is worth the while–the time, the Being–of that which it makes worthy… A most primordial way of doing so is acknowledging that which one makes worthy as actually being other ways of ‘making things worthy’–
How can a nihilist do so? as someone who keeps insisting even this much is superstition: it is only that one has evolved, even in one’s own lifetime–i.e., memories, reminiscences…–alone, to defer to certain phenomena that they are to be regarded as themselves numena to be reckoned with. Thus there is, for example, the weather, that chaos-theoretical primeval park. Yet another exemplum would be ‘other people’… ‘People’ must have been such a weather-like cloud or forest to lone predators insofar as they had a human-like experience thereof. Ah, but the ‘human’ is precisely what is to be overcome–if only for the sake of further understanding of these matters.
My way of ‘making things worthy’–or making things matter, for that matter–is manifesting myself, making myself clear, to myself. ‘Making myself clear’, the only way my “myself” literally means something, without being a transference on the part of other(s’) “myselves”. But even this my ‘making myself clear’ is always different–though in this vaporized state it’s even more different than usual–. It’s not always deeper, but on the whole it does get ever deeper, though not necessarily faster and faster as I grow older–or just grow, you may also say. Who?
Whoever regard themselves as made worthy by applying it (“you”) to themselves! But for the sake of all of you, first of all, to me, that should be Me! Moi–voila un homme! Yes, I’ve presumed to be a Man, a real man, and perhaps even a real real man… if my ‘Others’, my ‘significant others’, have only been girls or women. But does this not mean my ‘Self’, my self-image, is at bottom still feminine? Should I, if I am to be a real man, not address other Men instead? Or at least those who rule the present world?
My weakness or passion for tonal music, and then for the most ‘tragic’ of tonal music, was intimately related to my love and lust for girls–the most feminine of girls; though by no means necessarily the most ‘girlish’ of girls… in all respects, at least. Just had a déja vu–of something I seem to remember Magnus Anderson saying. Speaking of whom, I was also reminded of him at the very beginning of this post. But that is just a distraction, right now. I probably already lost him when I called something a nominalized adjective… of which I was also reminded when I wrote that. No, I write for the most learned of readers I can imagine–even as I aspire to be the most learned of writers I can be without pretending.
The real real man Socrates was supposedly a homophile. And indeed, “homophile”, ‘loving the same’, seems to follow most directly from self-valuing. Socrates loved his “puppies”… But really, I think, only insofar as he saw great potential in them–the potential to be mature, to be a Man, to be Socrateses of their own. I think or wish Plato was onesuch. Plato was Augustus to Socrates’ Caesar; was Aristocles, the Alexander to Socrates’s Aristotle… But under Socratism, Aristocles became only Plato; Aristocleanism, Homeric Nietzscheanism, became only Platonism… Let us, myself and my peers, at last impose this Aristocleanism! Doff the priestly or scholarly garb, become bloody and sweaty warlords! Not the sweat of people warming themselves against each other–quite far from it! But a kind of Conan the Barbarian of authors…
Ah, but must that not mean ‘each for himself’? I even used a pop culture reference in order to make myself clear… I’ve started to fail again! Back to my unshared experience with me! Where will this train of thought lead me?
—Aristoclitus